How To Change Timezone on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to change the timezone on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, By default, when a server is provisioned a default timezone will get configured automatically with the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). You can change the timezone later using the below method.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step set or change timezone on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint or elementary OS.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Change Timezone on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa

Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt commands in the terminal.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2. Check Current Timezone.

The currently configured timezone is set in the /etc/timezone file. To view your current timezone you can cat the file’s contents:

cat /etc/timezone

Or check the current timezone is configured on the system using the following command:

timedatectl

You will get an output similar to the one below:

Local time: Wed 2021-05-11 19:33:20 UTC
Universal time: Wed 2021-05-11 17:33:20 UTC
RTC time: Wed 2021-05-11 19:33:22 
Time zone: UTC (UTC, +0000) 
System clock synchronized: yes 
NTP service: active 
RTC in local TZ: no

Step 3. Change Timezone on Ubuntu 20.04.

Before changing the timezone, you’ll need to find out the long name for the timezone you want to use. The time zones in Ubuntu use the “Region/City” format.

You need to find your region and city using the list-timezones option with the timedatectl command:

timedatectl list-timezones

Output:

Asia/Aden
Asia/Almaty
Asia/Amman
Asia/Anadyr
Asia/Aqtau
Asia/Aqtobe
Asia/Ashgabat
Asia/Jakarta
...
...
...
Pacific/Rarotonga
Pacific/Saipan
Pacific/Tahiti
Pacific/Tarawa
Pacific/Tongatapu
Pacific/Wake
Pacific/Wallis

Then, run the commands below to change it. For example, if you wish to change the timezone to Jakarta in Asia, run the commands below:

timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Jakarta

Finally, run the timedatectl command again, and this time it should show the updated timezone:

timedatectl

Output:

Local time: Wed 2021-05-11 20:33:20 UTC
Universal time: Wed 2021-05-11 20:33:20 UTC
RTC time: Wed 2021-05-11 20:33:22 
Time zone: Asia/Jakarta (PDT, +0700)
System clock synchronized: yes 
NTP service: active 
RTC in local TZ: no

Congratulations! You have successfully changed the timezone. Thanks for using this tutorial to set the timezone on your Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Ubuntu website.